In recent years, Asuka has been one of the best established women in WWE. She is quite arguably the greatest Women’s Champion in NXT history and has gone on to collect gold on the main roster as well, with a run that has also included winning a Royal Rumble and a Money in the Bank Ladder Match. She’s on the short list of the talents who represented WWE best via her personality and sheer quality of performance during the empty arena era of the pandemic. The Empress has been missing from WWE television since summer 2021, however. Her injury status isn’t clear, but the general wisdom is that she’s primed for a return at any time. What might Asuka’s next run look like?
Asuka Should Win The Wrestlemania Women’s Battle Royal
For all of Asuka’s accomplishments in WWE, one feat she hasn’t yet pulled off is to win the WrestleMania Women’s Battle Royal--or to win a match at all at WrestleMania. It’s time for that to change.
To be fair, as of the time of this writing, WWE hasn’t announced any battle royals for WrestleMania and there’s no guarantee they will. However, with two nights to fill and plenty of women still lacking a clear direction for the biggest show of the year, it’s logical enough for this match to happen. Asuka could make an immediate impact, perhaps by joining the ranks of Superstars to have made their returns at WrestleMania, or at least as her first PPV back, to re-establish her as one of the top stars and perhaps a title contender on Raw or SmackDown.
Asuka Is Overdue To Feud With Ronda Rousey
When Ronda Rousey debuted as a WWE Superstar, it was in the immediate aftermath of Asuka winning the first ever women’s Royal Rumble in 2018. Both because the two of them found themselves standing together in the ring for that moment, and given Asuka’s big push, it stood to reason the two would ultimately find themselves on a collision course. WWE only augmented that effected with The Empress, for a time, transitioning from her Asuka Lock cross-face chicken wing to an armbar much more similar to Rousey’s signature hold.
Related: WWE Shouldn’t Wait Until WrestleMania 39 To Do Becky Lynch Vs. Ronda Rousey
For whatever combination of reasons, WWE didn’t go in that direction. Asuka lost cleanly by submission to Charlotte Flair at WrestleMania 34. Though she would go on to be featured and a champion on the main roster, she also lost a good bit of the momentum and credibility she’d had coming out of her historic NXT run. In short, Asuka no longer positioned as a natural opponent to The Baddest Woman on the Planet.
WWE can right that wrong now, though. While Rousey is tied up with Flair for WrestleMania and the rumor mill has her facing Becky Lynch at WrestleMania 39, there’s a year’s worth of opponents that will need to come in between. A freshly returned Asuka could have the fan backing, not to mention the in-ring talent to fill that spot nicely for at least a month.
Asuka Could Put Over Liv Morgan
Liv Morgan enjoyed a noteworthy run from late 2021 into early 2022. She has come a long way as a worker. More than just any babyface positioned to challenge a heel champ, she garnered a legitimate groundswell of support from WWE fans as they bought on her beating Becky Lynch and were vocally disappointed when she didn’t wind up collecting her first title.
It’s possible Morgan’s WWE push is over, and the powers that be will let her fester away from the title picture for the rest of year, if not the rest of her WWE career on the whole. There is also, however, a history of WWE coming back to popular talents and eventually awarding them the pushes they’ve earned. It could be that Morgan goes on a hero’s journey in the months to come and that would naturally include beating some credible rivals to scale her way back up the ranks to another title opportunity. If that’s the story WWE means to tell, a veteran and established talent like Asuka would make all the sense in the world as a mountain for her to climb, be it in a babyface vs. babyface rivalry, or after The Empress turns heel.
When last WWE fans saw Asuka in action, she was still in peak form and one of the most talented women on the roster. Nonetheless, she’s also 40 years old. Hopefully she will have at least one more featured run, though it seems likely her work will also be geared toward putting over others.
